Digital Desk Staff
Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan has warned people not to book foreign holidays this summer as he believes travel will not fully reopen before the end of the year.
It comes as Cabinet is expected to sign off on a raft of new measures and restrictions on travel this morning.
The Green Party leader said new quarantine measures expected to be approved by Government, which will apply to those who arrive without a PCR test and people coming from particular countries, will "take a number of weeks to put in place".
He said there had been around a 90% fall in the numbers of people travelling over the last nine months since the pandemic.
Mr Ryan added that Nphet had been asked about the possibility of moving to a zero-Covid approach, however, they advised that this is "unworkable".
He warned people against booking foreign holidays this summer, adding that most international travel will be stopped for the remainder of the year.
"Even if we get completely vaccinated - and please God we get that kind of cover - we live in a world where this virus is rampant and variants will come. In those circumstances, I think it's unlikely that there will be a complete opening up of travel.
"I don't think we're going to be flying in anything like the numbers we would have historically, there may be exceptions to that, but the vast majority of ordinary flights are not going to take off," Mr Ryan told Newstalk Breakfast.
